


dripped down and drained out

by armario



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 16:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16643618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armario/pseuds/armario
Summary: Jesse, out of all of them, has not coped well.





	dripped down and drained out

The more he tries to convince himself he hates Reyes, the more it's clear how much he misses him. 

 He doesn't pray. Instead, he nightly says,  
"Please come back."

 But Gabriel doesn't. Ana says nothing but Jesse knows they've spoken. Jack relays to her in hushed tones how he saw a shadow in the shape of a man. 

 Murder on the news. A hack on Overwatch's new system, a black shape surfacing from ruined circuitry, hellish claws tearing through skin. 

 It seems that everyone's encountered Reyes' shadow; everyone except Jesse. 

 So when he finally does come face to face with that monster, he is completely unprepared. 

 A swirling swarm of particles pins him down. He can almost make out ruined features- a ragged mouth, clawed hands.  
Under the strange, shifting weight, he doesn't struggle. 

 "McCree!" Jack barks in his ear. "Do something!" 

 Jesse swallows hard, tries to touch, but his hand goes through. 

 "Don't leave," he whispers. His voice is rough. "Don't leave."

 The formless darkness arranges itself into an echo of its previous self.  
 Eyes. White, dead, unseeing.  
 

"Jesse, get away from there," Ana takes over the earpiece. She is deadly calm but Jesse hears the terror bleeding through her tone.

 He can't help it. He squeezes his eyes shut but the tears still come. 

 He is terrified that if he opens his eyes, Gabriel will be gone.

 "You're pleased to see me."  
That voice is like wind through dry grass; hoarse, demonic. Maybe he imagines Gabriel's accent seeping through. There's a hint of curiosity, a hint of bitterness. 

 Jesse finds that he can curl his fingers round Reaper's wrists, holds them gently and reverent.  He lets his head rest on the cold floor and looks up into lifeless eyes. 

 "You have no idea," he replies. 

 "I've heard things," Gabriel deadpans. "I didn't think you liked me that much." 

 Jesse feels it then, all at once. The shock ebbs away and in washes anger, despair, grief, pain, love. 

 He struggles. Reaper doesn't let him up. 

 "How can you say that?" Jesse shouts, well aware and past caring that the entire team can hear him through the microphone. "You fuckin' left me!"

 His voice breaks. 

 " _You_ left _me_ ," Reaper snarls. "Dying in a fire. Burned to death. Brought back, a shadow of life."

 "I would never," McCree hisses. "You know that. I didn't know you were there, you never came back, you never-" 

 Reaper shifts away into particles again. 

 In the dark, Jesse panics. His mind rushes him back through it all; phantom pain, screaming his throat raw, iron wetness pooling around him, the end-

  _Cálmate, vaquerito._

 That voice guiding him away from the hurt, back down to Earth, cold metal beneath him, gentle fingers carding through his sweat-soaked hair. 

 In the present, Gabriel comes back to him. 

 "Maybe you're telling the truth."  
A distorted version of the voice that saved his life, but still instantly identifiable. "It doesn't matter now."

 "It does," Jesse says, his tone pleading, shaking; half of him thirty-five, stumbling forward to grasp at shadows, the other half twenty-two and lying bleeding to death from his severed arm, tethered to this world by reassurance. 

 He needs it now. 

 "Don't come after me, Jesse," Reaper says, solidity morphing into smoke. "I don't need to kill you." 

 Jesse feels bile rise in his throat and he fights the urge to throw up. 

 "Please don't go. Please."

 "Do the right thing. I know that's all you ever wanted." 

 "No, no, no-"

 "Get out. We've got him surrounded."

 Jesse ignores his commander. "Gabriel."  
A broken plea. 

 "Come on, Jesse," Ana says softly. Static crackles through the headset. 

 Shadow disperses and disappears: no sign of any friend, father figure, first love, nor foe. 

_"Come back!"_ he screams. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much. _"You fucker, come back!"_

 He throws the earpiece to the floor, crunches it into a million pieces. 

 Radios outside; low muttering.

 His lip trembles, his hand is unsteady. He feels like a fourteen year old boy again, alone in the desert, with nothing and no-one. 

 Jesse takes Peacekeeper from its sheath and presses it to his temple.  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Miss You" by Foster the People.


End file.
